Waste in the ocean
The oceans have become garbage cans. Unfortunately it is a fact known to all. No part of the planet is spared. Plastic waste can travel further and further into the Arctic Ocean.
Large blocks of polystyrene floating between ice blocks were found by a scientific team.
« I’ve been exploring the Arctic for 25 years and I’ve never seen such large and visible garbage blocks, » says a marine biologist at Exeter University in England.
The ocean today accumulates large quantities of plastic debris brought by ocean currents. In this part of the world, the ecological impacts are the more increased than this is a unique and remote ecosystem.
In addition, the detritus was found 1.6 km away from the North Pole, in a region that was previously inaccessible because it is usually ice eavered. This discovery confirms how much plastic pollution has spread.
According to scientists, the worst is to be feared.
The planet in danger
Due to global warming, ice melts and releases plastic waste into the ice trapped until now. It spreads even more easily. Ice melting can lead to high levels of pollution.
For now, there are more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic that roam around the oceans of the world. And since human beings produce about 300 million tons of plastic a year, the future is worrying. All the more than as the waste eventually breaks down into microparticles of plastic, which are then easily ingested by animals, humans, whales and polar bears. The entire food chain is threatened.
And the bad news does not stop there. Scientists have also observed that the ice has melted again dramatically. From now on, 40% of the central Arctic Ocean is navigable in summer. According to some projections, the far north could end up completely devoid of ice by the summer of 2050.
https://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/4611-dechets-plastique-ocean-arctique